Clay came in directly, while they were eating, and all agreed that Gran’s description of his breakfast had been realistic. The men came before long with their skids and rollers, and before noon the Rambler was rocking in the waters of the lordly Columbia river.
“Our dream has come true!” Alex whispered to Clay, as the last load of provisions was deposited on board and the men paid off. “We are at last on the Columbia, hundreds and hundreds of miles from the ocean, with a long ride before us. Isn’t it just glorious, old pal?”
“Glorious!” repeated the other. “It is more than glorious, and there never was any pictures taken in the pass, there never was any train robbery there, and Gran came to us without a suspicion clinging to him.”
“Right you are!” Alex approved, “still, for the last time, mind, I really would like to know what became of those films, and if there were any faces in the photographs that I did not see in the glow of the fire.”
“That is your last guess,” laughed Clay. “We are not going to have mysteries tagging after us on this trip, as we had on the voyage up the Amazon. We’re going to hunt deer, and bear, and jaguars, and have the time of our lives! And fish! Just wait until we begin to take those big yellow salmon from the river! Just you wait!”
“There’s one thing we forgot,” Clay observed, as the boys put away the provisions in the odd nooks provided for them and saw that the gasoline tanks were full, the electric generator in good working order. “We never went up to wish that gruff conductor good luck.”
“He is a gruff one, all right,” Alex cut in. “He did put on a lot of authority when he first came up to us, didn’t he, now?” he continued.
“But he calmed down when we filled him up with cakes and coffee,” Case observed. “He didn’t turn out so badly, after all. There’s many a gruff person in the world who can be quelled by a little courtesy.”
“But you wanted to fight with him,” laughed Clay. “I saw that by the way you looked at him. That would have spoiled everything.”
“Good luck to him, anyway,” Case commented. “He must have squared us in connection with the robbery, for no one here has asked us a word about it. He probably told the natives that we left with him long before the robbery took place at the pass. Don’t you think so?”